New 400 Theaters
6746 N. Sheridan Road,
Chicago,
IL
60626
6746 N. Sheridan Road,
Chicago,
IL
60626
10 people
favorited this theater
Showing 76 - 100 of 125 comments
If Village isn’t dead, it’s on life support! I read online recently that the city was evicting Village Entertainment from Village North over the summer. Based on Catherine’s above post, it sounds like someone else is already running the theater currently. And of course, we all know that Village was also recently evicted from North Riverside. Classic Cinemas took it over, and did many renovations to it in a month that Village never did in 2 years! As posted on this site, I think a Bollywood chain runs Lincoln Village and Bloomingdale. Isn’t that all the theaters they had left? Lest we forget the website that hasn’t been updated in 3 months…
Truly amazing. Evicted from two different theaters?! Who ever heard of such a thing?! It is truly a shame. I have gotten a real education on the Village chain per this site. Sounds like they bought a lot of great theaters with lots of life left in them and they either killed them or got kicked out of them. It’s a nice story that Classic Cinemas took over and renovated North Riverside. Too bad they couldn’t have saved more of these theaters like Biogrpah and Water Tower, etc. Oh well, guess I’m beating a dead horse here…
I called the Village North’s telephone number. According to the recorded message, it is no longer the “Village North”. Instead, it’s now called “Visionary Theatres”.
Methinks Village Entertainment is no more.
Hey,
I will be in the area on Thursday, so I will probably go & see a movie here. Is it still a decent place?
I don’t know why they feel they need to screw with it. Last time I was there it was a really nice little plaza.
This line is somewhat more distressing:
“Fox said he is satisfied with the property’s current mix of tenants, though ADC does have an eviction order pending against the operator of the theater.”
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A somewhat distressing plan to replace terra cotta with reinforced concrete
Sam Burrows managed the 400 Theatre — now called the Village North — through most of the 1980s. At one point, in about 1980 — Burrows no longer remembers exactly when — a very old woman walked up to the box office.
“Excuse me,” she said. “I have a free pass to this theatre. I think it may have expired, but I was wondering if you would still honor it.”
She handed him her pass. It read:
Admit One
REGENT THEATRE
6746 N. SHERIDAN ROAD
When Accompanied With One Adult Paid Admission
TO ANY PERFORMANCE
Up To And Including April 17, 1925
Needless to say, he let her in.
A scan of the pass can be seen at http://www.mekong.net/random/freepass.htm
And the clock continues to tick! Village’s website has expired! The site is pending renewal or deletion. The company must be on it’s last legs to have their website expire! I better run out to their theaters while I still can! I’ve never been to Village North or Lincoln Village and haven’t been to North Riverside since Village took it over-
Tick, tick, tick…that’s time running out for Village Theatres!
I saw “The Mist” at the Village North this past weekend. the theater was clean enough, but the staff was indifferent (they left me and several other patrons standing on the sidewalk until five minutes before showtime), the bathroom was poorly maintained (how do you run out of paper towels five minutes after opening?) and it wasn’t well heated (a sign in the window said they were having “problems with Peoples Energy”). I would chalk this up as a bad day at a good theater if I hadn’t had a near identical experience at the Lincoln Village a couple of weeks before. That points to poor management. I hope Village North survives—I believe it’s the oldest active movie house in Chicago, and it would be a shame to see it go.
OMG, there’s actually an ad for the Village North in the Sun-Times today!
Well, they finally updated their website. Braaaaaa-vo to Village Entertainment for not letting people know which movies were playing at their theatres for the past 6 weeks!
(Must be those stealth movies I’ve heard so much about)!
Village has not updated its website since September 21, 2007. What’s that all about?
Cinemark Fan,
You should combine that with a trip to see the Lincoln Village. All you have to do is take the 155 bus west from Sheridan/Devon. Do this while you still can. That is, while these theatres still exist and the bus route still exists.
Speaking of which, how will the proposed horrendous CTA/PACE/Metra cutbacks affect your movie-going? For me it will likely mean no more trips to the LaGrange, the Tivoli, the Lake, the York, etc. Sports-wise, it will likely mean no more trips to the Schaumburg Flyers and far fewer trips to the Chicago Wolves.
At least they want to keep the movie theater. I’m still planning to get down there to check it out, and go to that pizza place a few blocks away.
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Architects were Grossman & Proskauer.
Speaking of theatres in Rogers Park, in the late 1950’s there were two I recall being open; One on Morse Avenue, just east of the “L” on the north side of the street. I believe the building is referred to now as Cobler’s and the second is on Devon just east of Clark, now the Clark-Devon Hardware. I live in Miami now and came across this website by accident and found it interesting as I looked at the theatres I went to that, unfortunately, are mostly closed or gone. Of course the grand ladies were the Granada, the Century and the Uptown, with the Adelphi as a special place with the “star” ceiling. Is the Uptown still being considered for opening again? With the neighborhood upgrading, the theatre would be a grand addition back in business.
The 400 Theatre has special memories for me. During the early to mid 1960’s an annual Halloween party was held, where a Master of Ceremonies tossed candy to the kids all dressed in costume, a Best Costume award was given, followed by a “scary” movie, such as Frankenstein, The Mummy, Dracula or an Abbott and Costello fright/comedy film. I also worked there (age 14-15) on school weekends and during the summer restocking the Concession stand and general cleanup duties. I would let my friends in through the door behind the screen (on the Columbia street side) and we sneak in during the movie. Of course, the double wide seats were great for dates and I had my first kiss there at age 13. I lived on Columbia just up the street and worked at Frankfort’s Drug Store as a delivery boy and stock boy. Next to the theatre was a club called the Pink Fink, where the cleaners is located now. There was a barber shop on the other side, which later became a head shop. I worked there, too. A great theatre, indeed.
One look at Village Entertainment’s garish and useless Website, at www.villagetheatres.com, should tell you much of what you need to know about this company’s (lack of) smarts. Most of the theaters they purchased in the last decade have since closed. Wthout exception, the company will blame some circumstance beyond their control for a theater’s demise. It’s doubtful that they have a vision or even a viable business plan.
Went here often during the 1990s, when it was the 400, and only very sporadically since (my last visit was probably around 2005). This theater has been rotten for a while, before and after Village bought it and later put up the garish signs reading “Now First-Run and First-Class!” The improvements were minor and mostly cosmetic.
When the theater was ‘plexed out in the 1980s, some of the projection booths ended up off-center and the result is a fair bit of keystoning in certain theaters. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed this at another dedicated movie house.
I might be able to get down here & see 1408 after July 6th. Maybe during one of the following weekdays.
I saw the photographs from Mekong (as linked in one of the posts above). This theatre was also named the 400 Twin at one point.
I’m not sure what the future of this theatre will be, so I’m going to try to make it up there with my husband or some of my friends to see a show there soon.
Thanks, again, BWChicago. I wonder if Ginnie might have had a false memory about the projectionist. It seems more likely that someone made a verbal announcement about the bombing.
Speaking of memories, I spent time as a child at the Avalon in the 1950’s. Very fond memories. I moved from Chicago in 1970, so did not keep up on the theater (the New Regal?) until recently. I found some photos on-line of the Avalon. Can you recommend a good book with more Avalon interior photos and/or on-line sites?
The Tribune’s archive is online. I wonder how the projectionist would have projected that message.
Thanks, BWChicago, that was fast work. Did you find that on line or at a library? I really appreciate it. My friend who was at the theater in 1941 is 87 years old now & has some memory problems. But talking about movies & songs triggers all kinds of interesting conversations with her. She used to write a lot & part of her autobiography that she wrote in 2001 contains a detailed description of being in the theater (she just couldn’t remember the name of the film). Ginnie wrote, “…the action on the screen stopped. Since this was a frequent occurrence, someone called up to the projectionist to wake up, or change the reel, when we all realized the screen was fully lit and we could see the silhouette of fingers working with a strip of yellow paper. Suddenly,the statement was clear: THE JAPS HAVE BOMBED PEARL HARBOR! There was a murmur through the theater…Lou said, ‘Most of our Pacific Fleet is there. If they did real damage’…someone else finished the thought, ‘It would mean we’d be in the war!’…The theater lights came on and I looked around at so many people, just like us, ordinary middle-class, in a state of bewilderment…we started to file out of the theater soberly, quietly. We had all been through so much with the Depression that we seemed to know we just had to face up to this next impossible situation…”